[Treasure Hunting] Huge Update Coming!

Stratics VeteranAlumniStratics Legend

For those who do not read UHall, Or have not seen the news on UO.com Publish 67 will bring huge changes to Treasure Hunting.

The Treasure Hunting changes are as follows:

Treasure Maps

We have put HUNTING back into Treasure maps! Treasure Map locations are now have randomized locations. All maps that have been decoded before publish will be valid for only 30 days, after that period you will have to decode them again. We have added maps for all facets, redone the loot for the treasure chests, and added Guardian Mobs.

Just finished reading the notes for the next patch on stratics and IMO there are good and bads.

The on thing I'm most dissapointed about is the removal of regs. Not sure how most people go about getting their regs but I always relied upon my treasure hunter to provide the regs for all my characters. Are we gonna have to start taking the 10 or so regs off monsters we kill and/or buy them from NPCs? Not really sure what this means or what the implications will be.

Also not sure what the importance of the 'tasty treats for pets' are but it sounds kinda lame. I suppose it would be kool if the treats gave ur pets some sort of advantage for a limited time like increase mana regen or something.

I'm a little confused about the randomized locations for the maps. I hope that rune libraries will still be able to get us hunters to the location we need to be.

I am glad they improved chances of picking locks for high level lockpicking and added more gold. I'm also excited for treasure chest specific artifacts and the chance of another treasure map. It will also be nice not to have to sort through all the scrolls.

BTW, the Tasty Treats give pets something like a 10% or 15% bonus to all stats across the board for a few minutes when you feed the treat to the pet. It's useful, but was a pain to get when only from that one quest in Ter Mur.

Here was my response to the T-hunter changes.... (copied and pasted from U.Hall - a slightly longer version is in the Test Center forum)

Interesting T-Map changes, about half for the worse, IMO. Speaking as a THB Guildmaster, here's what I think.

Good changes:
1. New Items
2. New Locations
3. New Guardians (for the ones outside Tram/Fel, at least) that function like the old Youthful map guardians (require you to kill the guardians to loot)
4. improved chances to pick the high-end chests.

Bad changes:
5. New items, from reports, do not include Peerless ingredients, and those are the ones that are needed THE MOST to be added to the Chests. Everything BUT peerless ingredients are already easy enough to get.
6. New Locations will be near-impossible to find without mining. The fact that the new locations AREN'T the old ones makes this even worse.
7. They should have left the spell regs, and added the regs for Mysticism to the list - not remove them. (I won't miss the scrolls, though).

Ugly Changes:
8. The new maps will be a bit easier to find, if unattractive - but this will be negated severely by the needing to be exact on the location.
9. The idea of damaging items from picking failures doesn't sit well with me, considering that some level 5 & 6 chests can take 20-50 picks to open (that's 20-50 TOOLS, and about 100 failed checks). The chances to pick are supposed to be improved, but that better be a Substantial improvement, given the risk.

Suggested Changes:

A. Add the Peerless ingredients at a HIGHER chance of a drop than the SA ingredients, and restore the casting regs (adding the mysticism regs). I'm not the only person I know that prefers to supply their scribes and alchemists from chest and monster loot, and it's downright silly to add big piles of regs to Gypsies, while taking them from the chests.

B. Make the tracking in on the T-maps work like the Turkey nest maps, so that we know when we're within a screen or so of the spot, and can use the messages to get closer.

C. Add a bonus to the digging distance for Cartography, or let us tell when we are close to the map site because of our superior mapping skills (say, Cartography/20 squares, minus the level of the map - so that a GM Cartographer could dig up a level 3 map from 2 squares away). Have this instead of, or in addition to, the Mining bonus.

D. Frankly, I think the whole carto/LP soulstone swap method should be done away with for templates (after all, the THB charter from before soulstones required that to be a member, a character had to possess both skills). The changes as-is will only encourage it more. By adding C. above, it will make more people likely to keep both skills on their TH at all times. Cartography shouldn't be a "only used at home to decode, then soulstone off" skill.

E. Suggest bringing back the "Youthful Treasure Maps" of the old new character quests, for the "New Player Packs" you mentioned. These were level 0 maps, with non-aggressive Chest Guardians (low end undead) that had to be killed before you could loot, and the chest always contained another Youthful map. The old ones still work for "Young" characters, prior to this publish, at least until you get one that's in the now-gone parts of Haven's island.

And, a few questions:

1. How will existing Ilshenar and Youthful maps (both currently rares) be affected?
2. Are there maps in the Lost Lands in the new system? And, if the answer is yes, will it be possible for a chest to be located in the middle of a Fel champ spawn (or Ilshenar and Tokuno spawns, for that matter)?
3. How will picking player-made locked boxes (as most of us used to train LP) be affected?
4. How will impossible-to-dig spots (and you know from experience this will occur) be resolved? For that matter, how about a fix for the still-spawning SOS locations that are blocked by the Underworld entrance?
5. Any ETA for improvements to SOS chests?

6. (unrelated to the current publish) Any chance on restoring the parts of Haven that SHOULDN'T have been removed by the destruction of the main city, in a future publish? Specifically, the cemetary (though without undead, since there are plenty enough in the ruins), the standing circle, the pyramid, and the spot where the one former dev's hammer still remains, now buried under the terrain? I started getting nostalgic about the rural side of old Haven, when thinking about the Youthful maps.

We got an update today on Legends. I thought that was the new maps and posted a response earlier. If you saw it, please disregard. I just decoded and did an L6 map, and it's still the same old stuff. I'll post again as soon as I see a for-real new chest.

Stratics VeteranStratics Legend

We got an update today on Legends. I thought that was the new maps and posted a response earlier. If you saw it, please disregard. I just decoded and did an L6 map, and it's still the same old stuff. I'll post again as soon as I see a for-real new chest.

Stratics Veteran

I dont mind having random locations but come on give us a tool we can use to at least narrow down the location other than going to the area and randomly checking spots!!!! We need something to go by. The way we have to dig is annoying enough! All we really will have to go by is the little radar map. I am talking about 2d here, I dont know if there are any tools for the new client.

I am on a tiny spit of land with GM mining trying to find a level 1 map. Am I missing something? Has anyone found a chest yet?

Also I agree the regs should have been left in. I actually liked getting scrolls too but I wont miss them as much.

new and random spawn spots is utterly ********. I like
the idea and usefulness of libraries and I hated it when
they randomized ore similarly making scripters the only
ones able to purposfully be able to rack up on specific ores.

I did read that they would be buffing the lockpicking, so
I'm assuming we wont fail a million times as "Grandmasters"
as we do now wich I guess would result in a freshly unlocked
chest of rubble.

Removing the regs is not a good thing in my mind.
Even though I dont particularly need the regs, it's no bother
being there and I'm known to loot them since I'm a greedy
*******. I'd rather they limited the loot on the low end of the
spectrum with regards to intensities.
I also carry a number of empty spellbooks filling them as I go.

I feel that treasure hunting should potentially be one of the
best ways to get the truly high end magic gear as it used to be.

Stratics Veteran

Maybe a simple solution would be to forego the mining benefit and add the same mining distances based on the lockpicking/cartography skill you have. That way there would be a benefit of having cartography other than just decoding maps.

I actually like the randomized locations. Decoding a map, stoning off Cartography, and taking a rune to the exact location takes away a little of the challenge. It's a treasure chest, it shouldn't be buried where everyone can just recall to

That being said, I agree they definitely do need to add a means to narrow down the location of the chest. I like the idea of it being linked to Cartography so that people don't just soulstone it after they decode maps. I'd do a (cartography / 10) - map level, which stacks with the mining benefit (and maybe make mining into a straight mining / 10 bonus). I would also add an active use for cartography - you use it, click the decoded map, and it gives you "You can determine the map's location is not near here" "You determine that the treasure is nearby" "The landmarks on the map match those around you! You're very close!" This way mining gives a better benefit when working high-level maps, but Cartography gives a means of determining how near you are. Both would be valuable, but you could drop Mining if you wanted to.

I also do wish the kept reagents, and breaking items on failed lockpicks doesn't sit well with me either. Maybe make failed picks spawn a weaker guardian? Or just let things be as they are, since failed picks are annoying enough >.<

Overall, I like how they're doing maps. They just need to make them easier to find in general, and hopefully remove breaking stuff when failing to lockpick.

Stratics Veteran

Maybe a simple solution would be to forego the mining benefit and add the same mining distances based on the lockpicking/cartography skill you have. That way there would be a benefit of having cartography other than just decoding maps.

Click to expand...

I am not so sure there is a mining benefit. I am having trouble locating a level 1 map with GM mining on a very narrow spit of land.

EDIT:
OK I found the chest but I am pretty sure the GM mining didnt help me at all! The final location wasnt that close to the location indicated on the map but it is hard to tell as the scale of the map and radar is different. Please give us some kind of tool to help narrow the location ..tell me when I am getting warm or something! *grins*

Should have just kept it the same and altered the loot table. Trammel and Felucca only locations and the ability to continue to use our Treasure Map Libraries that many of us worked hard to either mark, copy or gather.

Mining should not me necessary. Its not like we are working with ore or smelting, your just digging in the ground.

Either case, if I can't use my treasure map runebooks, I won't bother. I don't have a ton of time to search all over an island to hit the right spot and If i bring some friends along, i'm sure they don't want to waste there night digging.

I'm very disappointed. I was so looking forward to getting my treasure hunter back out but now ... forget it.

Stratics Veteran

I dont think you should give up either. The maps are more detailed than the old ones. I think if they find a way to give us at least a clue when we are near the exact spot, the random locations might not be so bad.

I like the fact that we have to work harder to find it but I dont like just blindly checking spot after spot after spot for who knows how long. Someone posted on UO Hall that they completed 26 maps. I am waiting to hear their experience with locatiing the chest.

I actually like the randomized locations. Decoding a map, stoning off Cartography, and taking a rune to the exact location takes away a little of the challenge. It's a treasure chest, it shouldn't be buried where everyone can just recall to

Click to expand...

But you have the option to not use libraries as it is. There's
no need for everyone to suffer. Like Gunga said, we've put
alot of effort into our libraries. It seems to me that they're
constantly killing off our options to "customize" the way we
do things. I definatively don't see it as "cheating".
Anyone who has a treasure hunter does so likely because
they think it's fun, and it should continue to be so!

I despise "quests", it's why I play UO and not world of warcraft,
and this sounds like it's going to feel like the same kind of chore
"questing" is. Treasure hunting was fine the way it was, all it
needed was a boost in loot. I don't see why they should risk
ruining something that's been a success for oh so many years.

Don't give up yet, it's only just now freshly in testing. Just keep up the constructive criticism and hopefully the developers take notice, which I'm sure they will.

Click to expand...

Experience have taught me not to put much faith
in the developers judgement. Don't think for a
second it's all due to the competition that its so
deserted. The choices they make is mostly to blame.

Stratics Veteran

I tried the X method (using the link Hendric provided). It worked alright but the map you make is much smaller than the treasure map. It would be much more helpful if they were the same size and scale.

It still requires some searching but at least you can see if you are anywhere near the target or not. Looks like my treasure hunter will have to give up spellweaving for mining though (if mining still makes a difference that is). *frowns*

Should have just kept it the same and altered the loot table. Trammel and Felucca only locations and the ability to continue to use our Treasure Map Libraries that many of us worked hard to either mark, copy or gather.

Mining should not me necessary. Its not like we are working with ore or smelting, your just digging in the ground.

Either case, if I can't use my treasure map runebooks, I won't bother. I don't have a ton of time to search all over an island to hit the right spot and If i bring some friends along, i'm sure they don't want to waste there night digging.

I'm very disappointed. I was so looking forward to getting my treasure hunter back out but now ... forget it.

Click to expand...

I've changed my mind, i'll give it a shot. Even though i put a lot of time into making my rune library and importing these treasure map runebooks, I'll accept change and move on. Just working on my treasure hunter till changes come out. Lockpicking 96.8

Stratics VeteranAlumniStratics Legend

I've changed my mind, i'll give it a shot. Even though i put a lot of time into making my rune library and importing these treasure map runebooks, I'll accept change and move on. Just working on my treasure hunter till changes come out. Lockpicking 96.8

Click to expand...

I've tried to think about the positive, I'm hoping to install a Monster A-Z section in my Rune Library to replace the space used by the Tmap books for Tram/Fel.

I play a bard and I noticed that, for me, the treasure maps in trammel are going to be the hardest because of the AW. With 120 peace/music I have a 20% chance of peacing him. The only other mob that would spawn on any of the maps is the Greater Poison Elemental that spawns on the Ter Mur maps and I have about a 50% chance on him.

According to this info, bards are going to have an easier time completing maps not located in trammel. Just an interesting bit of info I thought some of yall might find helpful.

Stratics Veteran

True but ancient wyrms grow hair on your chest, so it's worth the extra effort, in my book! Admittedly, I've not yet faced such a beast but now that I'm finished training, it's only a matter of time before I cut one down with my sword. I think it's a good idea though, it will open op more template options for treasure hunting and people can collect the maps accordingly.

Smug, one of my more memorable treasure hunting moments was when a level six chest spawned four ancient wyrms. I took them down, after a lengthy battle, with my 4x120 bard skills and struggling with magery as a finisher. It wasn't easy, but I'm sure the devs would be horrified I did it solo anyway.

I'm not sure if that'll still be possible after all the changes, but I'd gladly give it another try. I may try other facets for variety but I think I would miss the wyrms if I gave them up.

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